The Plight of Mages
by Ananka00
Summary: Anders has left Hawke for the last time. He's heading back to Darktown to make the last preparations. He knows what he's about to do, he knows it's wrong, he knows that by furthering the cause of mages he'll also lose one of the reasons for his dedication to that cause, but he also knows that Justice will not let him turn back. [Contains DA2 spoilers]
1. Chapter 1

_Warning- contains DA2 spoilers._

_All characters belong to EA and Bioware. Just to make it clear, because I don't want to spark a discussion on the subject, I don't condone of Anders' actions (or of any similar actions), I just thought this was an interesting part of the story to write about._

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**The Plight of Mages**

It's too late. As he closes the door behind him he's left her for the last time, and she doesn't even know it.

Here in Kirkwall is where it will end. The sun has begun to set in the horizon, and the sound of each step he takes through the streets bounces against the building to become an echo within the Hightown walls. The only people out are a few guards patrolling the streets.

A day from now, the world will be different. Kirkwall, most of all. In one tiny corner of Thedas, change will have come. And while a part of him still hesitates, Justice will not turn back.

From where he is he can see the Gallows, a prison about to be broken, slaves about to be set free, the statues looming black and grey above the courtyard.

She almost talked him out of it. For a moment, right when it dawned on him that this would be the end, that this was him leaving her, that moment he had been prepared to call it all off. He would have, had Justice let him. But it is Justice that will bring this plan to close. While Justice breaks the chains and sets the world in motion, he will only be the spectator. Justice will be the one who brings about the chaos necessary for change, for rebuilding this city of corruption from the ground, fair, just, and free from oppression.

When he fused with Justice, there was no Hawke. And with Justice, there's no room for her, as much as he'd want there to be. At times he thinks she might be the sole thing that keeps the human part of him alive. Without her he can barely tell who he is anymore. Without her, everything is Justice and the glowing blue light that fills his mind when Justice pushes Anders aside and takes over completely.

At places this town is closer to the Fade than he ever was in Ferelden. He can feel it as he walks through the alleys. He usually notices it especially in Darktown, but even here in Hightown there are places where he can sense it. The air shifts, it trembles with a vague power, and there are some places where Justice awakens every time. These shackles where made to break in Kirkwall. This world has waited for them to lose their hold. He will be the first. And as this Circle breaks, others will follow. In his mind he can see it spread through Ferelden, a chain of fire, cleansing the oppression of the Templars, setting every mage free to live their lives with the gifts the Maker gave them. Free to leave, free to lead. Free to follow, if they wish to, but mainly free to be.

This cause he joined so many years ago, this is the climax. This is the first real step towards the goal, everything else was just preparation. He and Justice will tear these walls down. This is the struggle he's been set on, the one he took on. This is the dream he's had. This is the cause he volunteered for by taking Justice in. This is what he wants. And the only thing Justice wants. But in these places where the veil is thin, where Justice stirs and takes over, he goes somewhere else. He goes to Amaranthine, where the sun is setting over the Keep and courtyard and where he's putting a bowl of cream down for Ser Pounce-a-lot. He goes to the nights he stayed up talking and drinking with the Warden, the Hero of Ferelden, the Queen of Ferelden, before she headed back to Denerim, to the only time in the Wardens he ever enjoyed. He goes to the first steps he took outside the Circle since being brought there, when the sun touched his skin and the muddy fields of Ferelden stretched out before him with no end to them, not a Templar in sight. When he was free, the first time he was ever truly free. And he goes to Hawke's house, Hawke's bed, to the darkness of Hawke's bedchamber, to the hot and damp air that fills the room, where all he can hear is the shivering of her breath as he draws her closer, as he kisses her neck, to where she whispers his name so quietly he can only hear it because her lips are right next to him and where he enters her. To where he wraps her body completely in his arms, where she's so close to him he can't tell where he ends and she begins. To where he would stay forever, if Justice would only let him.

And then the Fade flickers and disappears, and he's still in the middle of Kirkwall, still heading back to the clinic, and everything is far, far too late.


	2. Chapter 2

"I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation. Why do you threaten it?" That was how he had greeted her, and how it began. At least her part of his story. For all that he hated the Deep Roads, they might also have been the only reason she ever found him. And even though she'd said she didn't threaten that sanctum, she had, just by showing up.

He never intended it. In fact, he never wanted it. Time and again he'd warned her. Hawke hadn't listened, though. He was not sure she'd even believed him. She was a mage, just like him, an apostate even, but she never seemed to grasp the Templar threat the same way he did, or the same way Carver had. Or maybe she just didn't care. Maybe she didn't believe they could get to her. Maybe it was because she'd never set foot in the Circle. Maybe she'd never believed she could be made Tranquil. Even when he'd told her about the Templars searching Darktown for mages, she'd joked about it. There was always a joke. Sometimes not a very good one, but always a joke or a sarcastic comment. He'd told her then that she was at as much risk as he was. And in response, she'd told him with a smile that she'd keep him safe. When it hadn't even been himself he worried about. Him being made tranquil- he feared it, of course, but on another level. He had taken a spirit in. If he was made a tranquil, at least that meant the Templars did something that kept with their rules. But if she was made one…

All of those jokes, bad or not, the Templars would take them, without a second thought. They wouldn't even hesitate before severing her from the Fade. They would leave nothing. They'd take the amused smile on her face when she, resting on her elbows, watched him play the lute. They'd take the way she mumbled in her sleep and stole the blankets. They'd take the way she'd sneak scraps of food to Samson under the table. The tune she'd hum to herself off key. The decisiveness in her voice when she made it clear to those she was speaking to that the time for talking was over. And they'd take the soft sound of her feet as she was coming up the stairs on those nights when he went to bed before her, the breath she held when she slid down next to him, careful not to wake him, even though he always stayed awake long enough to make sure she was safely beside him.

They'd make her into a barely living thing which responded if you spoke to it, but never smiled. And never joked. The Gallows were full of those things. All it took to end up among them was a single misstep. One faulty decision, one turn of events that got out of hand. Or just upsetting the wrong person. Gaining too much power, too quickly. She was a noble, rising from an old house, as much an Amell as a Hawke. But in Kirkwall, mages didn't rise to power. Even less so apostates. Mages didn't move into a mansion in Hightown, they did not get themselves a crest. They didn't consort with the viscount, didn't cross the Chantry. And they didn't openly speak out against Meredith, openly side against her. Becoming too much of a bother, too much of a threat, too much of an ideal, too much of an icon for the other mages to become trouble, that would be enough. The Templars didn't need any excuse to perform the rite, anymore. And Hawke had given them plenty of excuses.

And that was what he couldn't seem to make her understand.

That was what he worried about. Even now, when nothing else mattered.

He didn't care what happened to him. This was the mission he'd taken upon himself.

But she had never asked to be involved.

He had told her back then that he'd drown them all in blood to keep her safe. And he would, he would have. But abandoning his cause in order to do so, he could not.

And as he enters his clinic, stopping in the exact place that she stopped that day six years ago when she came to the clinic, he wishes she had listened. He could have been stronger. He should have pushed her away, made her understand.

He wishes the last six years to go away.

But he also knows that if there are any memories he wants to hang on to during these hours that may be the last in his life, it's those.


	3. Chapter 3

He lights the candles. In a metal box on the table, he lights a small fire and watches it catch on.

Everything is prepared on the table. Every ingredient, every piece of equipment he needs. It has begun to rain. He can hear the rain drops hitting the roof and the windows. There'll be no more patients coming to the clinic tonight. Maybe ever.

He warned her, but despite that she'd trusted him. He'd told her he would hurt her. But she hadn't listened. He was an apostate, a fugitive, but she loved him anyway. And that's why he hates doing what needs to be done. But she's also the reason it needs to be done.

And that's why he hates the Templars.

For being a mage, they would seal her in the Circle. For being a mage, they would make her tranquil if they deemed it necessary, or if they just wanted to. Never mind her talents or the many spells she knew. Never mind her family, the one that she'd been willing to leave Ferelden for, the one she'd belonged to, the one she'd lost and grieved. Never mind the childhood she'd had, another little girl in Lothering years before the Blight would come. Never mind her wit, her compassion, her wishes, her dreams, her smile- they would have taken everything from her if they'd wanted to, in an instance. Just for being a mage.

The Templars would have taken that little girl from Lothering, from Leandra and Malcolm and Carver, her and the mage sister who'd died in Ferelden. They would have locked her up, there, never allowing her to go free. Like they did with all mages, for the rest of their lives, however long or short those lives may be. She would have lived her life supervised by Templars. Constantly being watched for signs of blood magic and signs of demons. For suspicious behavior, or any behavior that could be used to manipulate you. They would have woken her up in the middle of the night to bring her to the Harrowing, a rite that could be as much of a death sentence as a rite of passage, and the threat of tranquility would always, always, have been held over her head, despite what the regulations said.

That's why it's necessary. That's why it needs to be stopped.

The Knight Captain had said that mages weren't people like the rest of them. But they were. They are. He's never known a mage who wasn't also a man or a woman. They feared like the rest of them. They felt like the rest of them. They wanted to live however they wanted, they wanted to work, to travel, to fall in love. And they all knew that they never could. Those things were just a dream for most mages. The way, despite all things, she is just a dream for him.

He opens the bags of the ingredients, one by one, and pours them into the mortar. And he begins working. Sela Petrae and drakestone. Heating, filtering. Glass beacons and glass pestle. Crushing and mixing. Working carefully, his forehead beaded with sweat, Justice urging him to continue, reminding him of the cause. His manifesto is spread out over the floor, long forgotten, reserved for a time when he thought papers and words would be enough.

He does not want to do this. But he will anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

The candles have gone out. Where he's sitting the only light in the room is coming through the cracks in the walls and the ceiling. Soon night will fall and his clinic will go completely dark. The mixture is spread out on papers on the table, drying in the air to make sure that it will not be too moist to work.

He knows what he's about to do, and he knows it's wrong. He knows it will cost him everything, including her. He's resisting, but he also knows it won't be enough. Justice is stronger than he ever was. And while the part of him that's Anders whispers to him about the night with Hawke, about the life they share, could share, about years and years by her side, about growing old with her, about the future they could have, Justice rages in his mind about the plight of mages. About how they'll never be free. About how that future he dreams of can never come, about how any children he would have with her would be locked up, would be taken from them by the Templars. Justice tells him that the future he dreams of is just a dream. And Hawke telling him never to leave her fades in that rage. He dreams about a world where somebody like him can love somebody like her and have a future. Where nobody is made tranquil, where children aren't stolen from their parents to be put in the Circle. Where the two of them could make a home without being hunted. He knows that's what he wants. But in order for that to happen, change has to come. And without him forcing the change it will never happen.

He's sitting in his clinic in Darktown, the raindrops falling through a tear in the roof, and he knows it's all over. There's no way out. Justice won't let him abandon the cause. And even if he would, he knows there's no way of getting what he wants- a peaceful life, a safe life, a normal life, with her, with Hawke, with giving her everything she could dream of, whatever it may be, with a cat and little Hawkes running around and stirring up trouble, with him sitting down in front of the fire to read to them, with him going to sleep at night next to her, every night for the rest of his life. The kind of life every non-mage in Kirkwall takes for granted, but that a mage can never have.


End file.
